Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1891 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

air, closing it at night to prevent draughts and exclude noise. It worked , like a eharm until she discovered that there had never been any glass in the transom. The Pennsylvania Legislature has been considering a bill that prohibits the exhibition of physical deformities as a source of pecuniary gain, as some of the freaks in the dime museums. The Medical Record thinks that it is an unnecessary interference with the comfort and well-being of those unfortunates who find in the museums a means of existence and perhaps even pleasure. Where, for instance, could an ossified man have more fun than in watching the crowds that watch him ?

Since our scientists adopted the fad of finding things with tails hung to ’em, one of them has dug up a lot of human skeletons with caudal appurtenances and another has discovered a new comet. These things arouse a suspicion that the geologist who is boring that deep hole in West Virginia is really inspired by some other hope than that of, learning the formation of the earth’s crust; and if, indeed,’he is looking for a famous person with a tail, he seems to have exhibited good judgment in selecting a starting point.

The proposition of a Kansas City Aiderman to abandon the practice of charging liquor-sellers a license fee and license the drinkers instead is at least novel. He would charge the habitual beer-drinker S2O a year and the drinker of all kinds of drinks SSO, thus imposing a financial penalty upon the imbiber of mixed drinks in addition to the penalty that nature commonly exacts. The s-age Aiderman estimates that this system would net the city $1,000,000 a year, as no doubt it would if the Aidermen were not exempt from the tax.

In a New Jersey shore town the other day a man died of hydrophobia, it was said, caused by the bite of a pet cat. Thereupon the people of the town began an unreasoning war of extermination against all cats, the entire feline tribe being held as accursed because of the one that inflicted the bite. As the New Jersey townspeople with cats, so the human race with snakes; because a few reptiles are venomous and deadly, mankind wages war on the entire ophidian species; and harmless and beautiful and graceful and useful creatures are crushed beneath th# heel, victims of an antipathy founded on ignorance and misconception.

Citizen Train’s suggestion as to how murderers should be punished is an excellent one. And, unlike many of his ideas, it appears thoroughly practicable. Instead of executing the taker of human life or consigning him to lifelong idleness in a penitentiary, Citizen Train would sentence him to hard labor for the remainder of his days and bestow the surplus profits of his toil upon the family of the nearest kin of his victim. Thus at one stroke the citizen would abolish the barbarism of capital punishment, compensate to some extent the relatives of the murdered person and really inflict a heavier penalty than death upon the murderer.

According to the census bulletin on educational statistics there were 12,592,721 pupils enrolled in the public schools of the country in 1890 as against 9,951.608 in 1880. This shows an increase during the decade of 26.54 per cent, in the enrollment against 24.86 per cent, increase i» the population, oyer 5,000,000 of which was from immigration. The showing, however, would not have been anything like as flattering but for the phenomenal enrollment in the public schools at the South running all the way from 34.42 per cent, in West Virginia to 133.15 in Texas. In the North the parcchial schools have out down the enrollment in the public schools to a slight decrease in some States.

The Jewish, Alliance, in the plan it has prepared for disposing of the Jewish immigration now pressing on this country, proposes a course more likely than any other to place the Israelites whom it aids in a position where their self-support will be easy and their absorption by tie community complete. Colonies perpetuate race characteristics and breed a tendency to rely on external aid. The more rapidly and completely the immigrant Israelite is placed in contact with the active industrial life which in all the newer parts of this country is transforming new lands into new wealth, the more certain is the transformation of the poor and oppressed Israelite into a citizen as useful and ax prosperous as the members of the Alliance which is extending this beneficent aid on a rational and comprehensive plan.

The Atchison Champion credits Dr. B. G. Culver of that city with the propagation of a vine which he calls the potamato. It grows potatoes under ground, in the usual fashion, and bears tomatoes at the top. This result has been arrived at after a series of experiments lasting through twenty-one years,-and is pronounced to be a success, though the method employed is not stated. It is thought to be hybridizing the seed ball of the potato with the other plant. Of course if each part of the double function of the new plant is performed as productively as are the single ones there is a gain of 100 per cent., and on the principle that “he who makes two ..blades of grass,” etc., the Doctor must be called a benefactor of his species. But that remains to be seen. Such experiments do not always amount to an effective killing of . two birds with one stone.